


Team RAZE

by Ysfael



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Gen, Multi, Other, Ruby Rose (RWBY) Needs a Hug, Ruby Rose makes a(nother) Mistake, Ruby Rose makes bad decisions, Ruby Rose needs therapy, Ruby Rose would stab you though so maybe don't, Sadism, The Happy Ending may take a bit but I promise it's coming, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27409645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysfael/pseuds/Ysfael
Summary: There is no Salem, no Cinder, no Torchwick and no silver eyes to get Ruby early admittance to Beacon. Instead she has to wait 2 years while her sister goes off to become a Huntress. And she hates it and everyone and most of all she hates herself for feeling this way.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long/Joan Arc/Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose/Original Female Characters
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	1. Ruby learns to Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: Major angst and later mentions of cutting without too many details (tbh I don't know how many details is too much so just watch for where I've tagged —cw:mentions of Cutting start now— once the mentions of cutting start.

Ruby watched as her sister boarded the bullhead for her first year of Beacon and longed to join her. This would be the first time she’d be separated from her older sister in her life and she was understandably anxious about it.

Last night she’d been unable to sleep and so had gone to a local Dust in Vale where they and their father had rented a hotel room to stay the night and see Yang off for Beacon.

She’d just looking at a weapon magazine for nearly an hour before buying a vial of burn dust as a gift for Yang and to appease the shop clerk who had spent most of that hour glaring at her and muttering about this not being a library.

The entire time she’d been fantasizing about some criminal gang busting in and robbing the place and her fighting them off and impressing the Beacon Headmaster enough to get the early acceptance she’d been working towards as soon as she realized that she and Yang would be separated by Beacon.

No such luck however. So now she had to deal with the pain of seeing her sister’s bullhead fly up towards Beacon and knowing that she wouldn’t get to see her in person and feel her amazing hugs until the winter break.

Yang kept her promise at least to call every night before bed. Her partner was a ‘quiet girl’ named Blake while her teammates were the ‘dorky awkward mess’ Jaune and a ‘stuck-up rich bitch’ named Weiss. Their leader was the Jaune guy and Yang didn’t much like him. She didn’t know why just that ‘He’s hiding something.’

And life continued on. More notably empty of Yang’s warm hugs and calming precense in Ruby’s life.

Without Yang there and dad being a workaholic Ruby threw herself into what most interested her. Training until she couldn’t stand then retiring to her workshop to work on Crescent Rose.

Yang would have stopped her before she reached exhaustion and kept her sessions with Rose short but without Yang there to stop her Ruby was free to spend as much time as she wanted on Rose.

She still would have prefer her sister being there but she’d take what she could get.

About half-way through the semester Yang’s call was different. Apparently her team had been through a major fight and after talking it all out they’d come out the other side far stronger. Jaune became Joan and the tone went from ‘guh he’s such an annoying little shit.’ To ‘Ruby I’m too gay for this. Please send help.’

She had sent her congratulations to the newest member of the ‘not cis-ters’ club. She remembered how much of a shit she had been before her egg broke.

After that her and Joan exchanged texts. As the elder Transgirl she offered whatever advice Joan needed and surprisingly enough she found herself feeling quite good about it. She actually liked Joan and that she was much more willing to share some of the more embarrassing stories of Yang certainly endeared Ruby towards her.

Yang was too prideful to share embarrassing stories with Ruby in their talks and she hated texting because of the small buttons.

She found herself spending more time talking with Joan than Yang.

So when she received a text from Joan expressing how she maybe had a crush on Yang and wanted her advice/approval Ruby just smiled and told her that Yang was the type to appreciate a girl being straight forward with their interest.

A week later she got an early call from Yang gushing about her new girlfriend and being wonderfuly gay about the entire thing.

She was happy for her sister and she’d found a new normal in her day-to-day. Texting Joan throughout her day sometimes about weapons, other times about Yang and sometimes just forwarding gender memes.

Then as Winter break was approaching Yang’s call was nervous as she asked if her entire team could stay with them for break.

Apparently Blake wasn’t on speaking terms with her parents, Weiss had been disowned for dating a Faunus woman, which turned out to be Blake. And Joan’s family was extremely bigoted against non-cishets.

Which meant that they were all planinng to stay at Beacon over break but Yang wanted to invite them all because as they had heard growing up. ‘Your Hunter Team is your family.’

So Ruby got to properly meet Team JLWB (Pronounced Glib) for Winter Vale.

During the holidays she spent a lot of time training in the yard with her sister’s team. The comments asking why she wasn’t at Beacon after she won a few bouts left her puffed up with pride.

She mostly took wins from Joan and Weiss. Joan admitting to her that she hadn’t even had her Aura unlocked until Yang did in for her at initiation and had started with only the most basic of knowledge on how to fight. She was a fast learner by Ruby’s reckoning and an amazing Tactician. The longer she managed to draw out a fight the better she performed.

Weiss on the other hand was training in Fencing which was a poor match-up against Crescent Rose who could just bat her light blade aside and strike at Weiss’s body. In proper team combat though Weiss primarily used the glyphs of her Semblance to support her team from mid-range while taking out targets of opportunity.

Even still Ruby’s spars with Yang proved to her that she was falling behind. Before Beacon Ruby won about as often as she lost. Now she took up one win due only to revealing a new feature she’d designed into Rose, namely firing the blade connected to a length of chain to wrap around Yang. She was caught be surprise and lost that bout but nothing Ruby did allowed her to take another fight. It was infuriating.

Ruby pouted about that and she barely got any hugs from Yang was Winter Break and then Team GLWB was leaving to return to Beacon.

After that Ruby regretting spending a lot of her Winter pouting about losing to Yang and began working her ass off to get better with the goal of taking some bouts off her come Summer break.

Her semblance was the first. She’d always felt there was more to her semblance than she could access. But it had taken her years just to learn to stop from activating it without meaning to and a few months after that to get it to activate when she wanted it to. She’d always felt like training her technique and improving Rose would always keep her growing but that growth was no longer enough.

Her first discovery was that when she activated her semblance she transformed and didn’t need to come out of her semblance in the same position she entered. That had been a restriction before since she couldn’t attack while her semblance was active she had always readied her attack before activating her semblance, getting into position and following through on the swing.

Now she could use her Semblance to reposition Rose into rapid strikes swing, reset back to a prepared stance then swing again.

It meant dropping a number of techniques and moves that she’d developed assuming she’d need to move into position properly after each swing. She’d keep them in practice for when she couldn’t use her semblance but she had to practice this new semblance use.

The trouble was that Uncle Qrow was away on a mission and dad was busy with work at Signal. Her peers were so far behind her she could beat most of them with her eyes closed and in-fact had taken to using them to practice her unarmed fighting. After a few loses she was starting to puzzle out how to fight without Rose. She was ill-suited to her dad’s ‘Glass-Fist’ Style and had found far more success with a style focused more on light and accurate blows. It wasn’t good for fighting grimm who had few weakpoints in the way that people had them but Grimm were also way less likely to disarm her.

That did allow the idea to cement in her mind that a sidearm she could fall back on might be useful and with a greater understanding of her Semblance perhaps something that would be designed from the ground up to work with her semblance.

So she tested basic designs and pushed her semblance further. She caught up on lost sleep in her classes, she was so far beyond her class that even sleeping in class she was top of her class.

More than a few of her peers thought she was cheating but the sparring ring put a stop to that sort of talk. She was just that good and if it weren’t for stupid adults saying she’s too young to goto Beacon she’d be there and not stuck on Patch all alone.

She furthered her semblance in the discovery that while she needed to pull herself together into one area to reform she could split herself off infinitely if need be being aware of the area around any of her rose petals. That led to her trying to partially reform which took a ton of effort and focus early on but after a good month of working on it was usable in combat if still more effort than she liked. Similarly she had discovered that she could be mostly Ruby-shaped but just enough Rose to scatter when she was attacked allowing an attack to just disperse her and she could then reform elsewhere but that was far from combat-ready as it required her complete focus to stay on the edge and not scatter into the Roses of her semblance.

Unfortunately none of these developments really gave her inspiration for her Sidearm project. She’d tried a Chainsaw and Shotgun combo which she dropped after nearly sawing her face off. She’d re-approached a design that had evolved into Ember Celica that was even more of a failure than the last time she’d tried it since her Semblance didn’t work in the way her Mercurial Thorn had been designed. She had been made back when she thought her Semblance was just a Speed semblance and she could just make running punches at her enemies. Her speed really didn’t transfer between Roses to Ruby so Mercury was basically a useless weapon which made Ruby sad to see a weapon made for Grimm killing just continue to collect dust unused and too niche to really work for anyone without a specific kind of semblance.

She spent less time talking with Yang, where once they called and talked every night by the time summer came around it had become one longer session on Saturday night. By the time Summer came around Ruby had learned to adjust to Yang being gone and she found the presence of her and Joan (As she was staying with them for the summer due to her other option being a sister who left the family to marry her wife in Argus.) to be too much to handle. She’d gotten used to being alone and suddenly going from that to having Yang back would have been enough of a shock but adding to that the fact that she would be here for 3 months before returning to Beacon leaving Ruby alone once more.

Ruby avoided the couple. She’d been devastated enough by the original separation and the winter break one had just rubbed salt in the wound. Now she was expected to just continue on like she hadn’t spent the last year alone and hurting.

Fuck that. She spent most of her time out of the house or locked up in her workshop avoiding Yang and Joan. She was made only more angry by the fact that Joan was now beating her in spars more often than not. Joan who hadn’t even been training a year was now able to grab a win more often than not when Ruby had been training her whole life.

It made her furious and she absolutely hated it because before Winter she had actually liked Joan and got along well with her but now she couldn’t stand her because she was the most prime example of why she hated her age. She was being denied the opportunity to get better, to grow as a Huntress and even get out there and help people because she was too young for the adults to feel comfortable letting her into Beacon and she hatehatehatehatehated it all. She hated her Sister for leaving her here alone, She hated her sister’s team for stealing her away from her. She hated her dad for not noticing that she was suffering. She hated herself for feeling this way.

When Yang returned to Beacon it was a relief. Her home was her’s again and she no longer needed to avoid the couple or think up excuses to blow them off when they tried to do something with her.

She was still angry but with the objects of her hate away from her she could at least focus on what was important. She trained more she was falling behind and she needed to be better, stronger, faster.

She needed to finish her Sidearm project or discard it entirely. As it was she was wasting time on it that could be spent elsewhere.

She went forward on a design. Whip Swords with integrated shotgun bracers built from a heavily modified Mercury Thorn.

She renamed them Lashing Thorn and began practicing with them. They made for an excellent weapon in tandem with Rose. Rose’s largest issue was her length. In tighter confines like a forest or hallway she was limited in her swing arc options. Her semblance opened up arcs that others wouldn’t have available but not enough to not result in her being at a disadvantage from certain terrains. As well it was ill-suited for people who she had to hold back on or else split in two if their aura failed at the wrong moment. Or those who specialized it getting inside her reach.

Too many situations where a Scythe was ill-suited so having a pair of Shotguns strapped to her wrist that could shoot out a bladed whip gave her new options that offered handled those times where Rose was ill-suited.

She focused on learning Lashing Thorn in sparring class. Her peers were so far below her that they offered little challenge but there was something to be said for quantity over quality.

Winter came again and she was almost relieved to learn that they would all be spending all but the last week of break in menagerie with Blake’s parents. She did not want to deal with the people she hated so much for the entire break. A Week was more than enough thank you very much.

Dad was working, Signal was on break but dad always found more work. Ruby didn’t ask because ultimately she was happy her was gone. Having people in her house, and it was her house since she was the one who spent the most time in it, who cooked and ate and cleaned and lived in it. Nowadays it wasn’t unheard of for dad to sleep in the cot under his desk.

**—cw:mentions of Cutting start now—**

The first time she cut was the night of Winter’s Vale. She’d thought about it before but never had enough whatever it was to go through with it. But this time she did after receiving a text from dad that he was working late again. Even last year their tradition of gifts and family togetherness had been upheld but this year she was home alone. She extended Lashing Thorn’s blade and cut a shallow cut along her wrist. Then another, then a third before she patched it all up. Thanks to Aura there were no scars, no real risk from such a swallow cut. Just a nice little rush of endorphins that help her feel not so fucked.

The week with Team JLWB Ruby locked herself in her room or Workshop refusing to interact with them. Part of her wanted to challenge them to a spar but she was so terrified to challenge them and lose even harder than she had before. To have proven to her that she was stagnating and falling behind.

The cutting became a regular thing. Every day after school she’d cut a few times along her wrist before patching it up while Aura healed it and going about her daily training.

If there’s one benefit to her mood it’s that it attracts Grimm like nothing else. Once upon a time she had to hunt for Grimm. Now she can just go outside the walls of Patch and have the Grimm come to her. She enjoys killing Grimm. Take enjoyment as she cuts them in half, shreds them with Lashing Thorn, dismembers and overall annihilates entire packs of Grimm; mostly Beowulves but the occasional Boarbatusk and the rare Ursa too. Her pickings are slim on Patch, she longs to go elsewhere and kill new Grimm she’s only read about in books.

But she can’t, because she needs to stay in Signal if she wants to goto Beacon. Also Dad, but he’s becoming ever more minor in her decision making processes.

In the end she pushes her training, and readies herself for summer. Team JLWB will be staying for the second half of the summer after spending time at Menagerie during the first half with Blake’s parents again.

She intends to get every spar she can from them even if she loses if only to not be too far behind her Beacon peers. To have that slight edge.

She decides to head to the Mainland, with her semblance she could just float to the mainland and from there she could try hunting some bigger and more dangerous Grimm. She’s happy when an ancient Nevermore bares down of her with a crow while she was killing a pack of Beowulves. She uses her Semblance to simply scatter where Nevermore feather might have otherwise impaled her. Then she knocked it up a notch. She reforms behind the Alpha, Rose in hand and with a single swipe from behind removing it’s head from it’s shoulders. Then scatters again to reform with Lashing Thorn’s blades around two more and she pulls and tighten removing two more heads. The next Nevermore swoop she scatters timing it so that the wind the nevermore kicked up throws her roses into the air, she reforms on it’s back driving Rose into it’s back as an anchor. The smile on her face wide as her heart pumps blood through her veins. With a flick Lashing Thorn arcs out and wraps itself around the Nevermore’s neck. With her other hand it’s twin she swipes and removes the left wing sending the Nevermore into a dive which she steers with her handy dandy neck noose into what remains of the beowulf pack.

At the last moment she scatters once more reforming behind the lone beowulf surviving and removing another head from shoulders. She’s covered in Grimm Ash, her own blood and a toothy smile that won’t leave her face. She hasn’t felt so good in years.

The next week she feels good, she doesn’t cut, she just thinks of her Nevermore kill and gets a high far better than cutting ever could. But after a week even that high dulls and she returns to it.

Nobody noticed her three day absence. She’s gone longer without seeing dad before so it shouldn’t surprise her or make her hurt but it still does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no clue when I might continue my other stories but this needed to be written and then sharing bits of it in a discord I wanted to share now instead of sitting on it until I knew what I might want to do with it long-term.  
> I wrote this in a few hours.  
> I'm still writing more but I think this is the best cutoff for Chapter 1.  
> To tease the next chapter I'll tell ya'll the name 'Ruby learns the meaning of Beatdown'


	2. Chapter 2

Ruby is waiting beside her father at the airship landing area for Team GLWB. She is seething on the inside at her father who again drops everything for Yang but ignores her.

She doesn’t show her anger. It would accomplish nothing aside from showing her weakness.

She refuses to open herself to more knives in her back from ‘family’.

If anyone is getting stabbed in this family it’ll be Team GLWB.

That thought makes her smile. Imagining their terror stricken faces covered in each other’s blood as she stand over them Rose held casually in one hand and Thorn wrapped around Yang’s neck.

She wouldn’t kill them of course. Even in the depths of her hatred and desire to inflict pain on her traitor of a sister she would harm but never kill.

But they don’t need to know that and the thought of their fear tastes wonderful to her imagination.

She’s in her combat outfit, in spite of her father’s desire for her to ‘wear something nice’ her Thorns are at her wrist as they’ve been since she finished their construction. And Rose was concealed at the small of her back underneath the jacket of her combat outfit. She’d ditched the cloak after a few too many tangles with the thing. She now just had a red Scarf in it’s place and reasonable heavy armored combat jacket and undershirt which were far easier to manage in a fight. Combat Skirts traded out for Pants, she’d been insistent on skirts for so long because dysphoria but pants no longer gave her dysphoria to the same degree they once had and were far more practical for a Huntress. Heavy Combat boots with concealed blades in the front and back as a final hold-out weapon should she need it.

Her hair was in a Vacuan Wolf’s Tail as the style was called with the sides and back shaved close while the top was left long and usually pulled into a ‘wolf’s tail’ at the end. It was easier to cut herself since she didn’t trust anyone with sharp objects near her and even easier to take care of and keep out of eyes in a fight or in the workshop.

And it was feminine enough and her dysphoria reduced enough that she enjoyed it.

She clicked out the blade of Lashing Thorn and retracted it over and over bored of the waiting and both unable and unwilling to talk with her father. Beyond the bare pleasantries that was their norm.

“How was your day?” “Fine” “Training going well?” “Going good.” “Anyone you like at school?” “No.”

She’d honestly be surprised if she’d exchanged words beyond those with her father since Yang had started Beacon.

When Team JLWB arrived they arrived with smiles and a physical closeness that made Ruby want to stab them more. Yang had her arms thrown around Joan and Weiss while Blake was rolling her eyes at whatever inane bullshit Yang was spouting.

“Sup Rubes, good couple of months?” Ruby glared back and didn’t answer. She was sure she’d cause a scene if she did so she stayed silent.

“Uh dad, Is Rubes alright?”

“Dunno, she doesn’t exactly talk a lot of late.”

‘Not that you’d know if I did’ she mentally added.

“That doesn’t sound like Ruby. What’s up little sis?” Yang laid her hand on Ruby’s head like she used to which Ruby hadn’t expected and drew Lashing Thorn and swiped at Yang who leapt back creating some distance before dad got between them.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into Ruby but this ends now. Now apologize to your sister.”

Ruby glared at Yang who was looking at her with surprise and some small hurt in her eyes. “Go fuck yourselves.” And then before anyone could get another word in she scattered into Roses and threw herself up into the wind heading out of Patch and into the Grimm infested Wilds. She had better ways to spend her time than a ‘Family’ dinner where everyone would blame her for their bullshit.

The Grimm came into her maw willingly and she feasted on their deaths until she was too exhausted both physically and emotionally to attract more. She scattered and found her way back to the house blowing into her room from a cracked window.

Tomorrow was the day. Best that she get good rest so she’d have the best chance.

* * *

Joan loved her girlfriends. Hell she loved her life. She still dealt with her depression of course, some morning she woke up and knew it was going to be a shitty day. But her Team was there to keep her spirits up and cover for her when she lacked the energy to do much more than the bare minimum.

Yang was warm and loving and gave such amazing hugs and advice. It had been thanks to her that Joan had accepted that her deeply held desire to be a woman was not only entirely valid but also what a lot of other people felt. Yang’s acceptance of her in that way had been followed by Blake and even Weiss.

And then she developed a crush on Yang, went to Ruby, Yang’s sister who she’d put Joan in contact with for any help she might need that she didn’t want to talk with her team about. Ruby was, honestly a little annoying sending memes and small talk while Joan was busy but she sometimes enjoyed the memes at least. She’d gone to get her help because this was Yang and surely Ruby would know if her sister was even interesting in girls like her.

Instead she’d ignored that and just told her how to ask Yang out. And it had worked. She’d been thankful and mentally promised to give Ruby more of a chance but she had stopped messaging as much and by the time they spent their first Winter Vale in the Xiao-Long house she’d been stand offish and frankly a bit of a bitch towards them all.

She’d been pleased when after that she largely avoided both of them the following Summer. She’d distracted Yang from worrying too much about her little sister by convincing her that maybe she had a friend who she was off seeing or something else.

She had to calm Yang down every time the topic of Ruby came up and the younger girl was an even bigger bitch to them both any time they sparred and she lost. Even when she won she’d get this look in her eye that was bitchy.

Joan loved Yang but hated her little sister. The girl was either annoying or bitchy with nothing in between.

The following year was great. Weiss and Blake pursuing their relationship and she and Yang had theirs. HRT meant she finally had something that could be called tits without exaggerating the truth. (And she loved how much Yang enjoyed playing with her tits.)

They had admitted to one another to burgeoning crushes on their other two team members but neither wanted to act upon it so they agreed to keep it to themselves.

That had lasted until the first half of their second Summer Break. They’d been invited by Blake to visit her parents on Menagerie and they’d happily accepted.

That had lasted until Yang convinced them all to goto a local club and drink. Joan still didn’t remember much about that night aside from waking up with a killer hangover naked in bed with Yang behind her and Weiss and Blake in front all of them naked as the day they were born and smelling of sex.

There had been an interesting conversation after that as they pieced together the night and discovered that the team attraction was full and mutual Blake and Weiss sharing the attraction towards the other half of their team.

That was certainly new and explaining it to Blake’s parents was surprisingly easy.

After that they dated around amongst themselves and Joan found herself even happier being able to kiss and be kissed by any of her three girlfriends.

The great times had to end eventually though and Yang, who had been so excited to spend the rest of the summer catching up with her little sister and showing off her girlfriends and how great they were had her mood wiped clear by her bitch of a little sister trying to stab her then running off.

It had put quite the damper on Dinner with Yang’s dad and Joan had been forced to try and cheer her up enough for her to share their change in relationship status.

Yang’s dad was accepting just as Yang anticipated. But the mere mention of Ruby seemed to drag her down.

She didn’t understand why the Ruby that Yang saw and the Ruby that existed were so different but she hated Ruby if for no other reason that the pain she had inflicted upon Yang tonight.

The next time they spared she’d make sure Ruby got enough of a beatdown to maybe learn to be less of a bitch.

For tonight she and her girlfriend held their blonde girlfriend while she cried about her bitch sister. Once she passed out after a good cry they all quietly agreed to show Ruby what they thought of her tomorrow. For tonight they joined their girlfriend in sleep.

* * *

The following morning Ruby readied herself for a fight. She checked her gear, cleaned Thorn and Rose of the Grimm Ash she’d left on them the previous night and then went downstairs. No one was up so she went about her morning routine. Breakfast for one, Egg over-easy, Ham, cheese on a Frozen Waffle cooked in the toaster. Good enough to wake her up but light enough that she could keep it down during her morning warmup.

Then she got to her morning warmup which was interrupted by 3/4ths of Team GLWB minus Yang.

“Why are you such a bitch Ruby?” Joan asked as an opener.

Ruby felt a flash of fury fill her before she snuffed it out. She rolled her eyes and continued her warmup.

“We asked you a question. You really hurt Yang last night or do you even care you psycho?” Joan was getting louder now.

“Aw, protecting your girlfriend from the wittle girl how brave.” She felt the taunt escape her lips. She had gotten used to responding to people being assholes with taunts and insults she hadn’t exactly meant to in this case but it served her purpose well enough.

“It’s almost like she isn’t a Huntress-in-training with 2 years at Beacon under her belt.”

All three were glaring at her.

“You got a problem with me take it up in a spar. You four versus me.”

“Fine, you got it bitch.” Joan snapped back before dragging her teammates inside.

Ruby smiled that was easier than she expected.

With that Ruby set about finishing her warmup. She was interrupted again on the tail end of her warmup by Team GLWB walking out. Yang was cheerful as always and Ruby just wanted to punch that smile off her smug fucking face.

“The girls tell me you want to spar all four of us. Say you’re really convinced.”

She nodded not trusting her mouth to not yell angrily at her.

“Okay, to Aura Break?”

“Blood.” She said before she charged in with her old Semblance. She hadn’t really had a spar with Yang for a while, long enough that she didn’t know just how far Ruby had taken her semblance.

So she prepared for a forward charge throwing a punch that just caused her Rose’s to scatter before she reformed behind Yang one Thorn forming wrapped around her neck and the other in place for a downward arcing swing to force her team to back off. She leveled her shotgun at the back of Yang’s head and fired. Partially scattered her shotgun to reload and fired again. Like a Fully automatic Shotgun she fired 5 shots of Burn dust into the back of Yang’s head to her sweet cried of pain from the residual pain from taking that much aura damage.

Blake’s weapon swept through her scattering her petals on the wind while she took no aura damage. Ever since mastering this level of her semblance she only took damage after a long enough fight to drain her aura had occurred. She was still basically full so she didn’t have to worry about her aura for a few hours. In that time she’d have crushed these bitches.

They united with Yang getting her to feet and moving back to back. Just as she’d anticipated. Then Joan glowed with golden light which settled as armor onto all 4.

‘Neat Semblance.’ She thought. She stayed scattered and observed. They were using code to communicate. Too bad for them it was the code she and Yang had come up with when they were 7. Had Yang forgot? Probably.

That let her know that Joan could only maintain her armor for an hour before she exhausted her aura.

Ruby could outlast that but that would be terribly unfun.

She reformed in the trees with Rose readied in sniper form and aimed in the general direction of Team JLWB. Sight and fire, then fire again. On the third fire she was clipped by a dust round and scattered. Another tree, more Sniper fire. She smiled as the team fell back hunkering behind Joan’s stupid little shield.

Scatter, new tree, Ice rounds, aim fire, fire, fire. Joan disabled by Ice.

Scatter Reform behind Blake. Rose in hand. Bring down in arc. Tip impacts throwing Blake into Weiss as Aura blocks.

Hit by gun fired by Blake. Forced to Scatter. Reform behind Weiss, Thorn wrapped around neck and she kicks her away Thrown slides and grinds against Weiss’s aura who’s aura breaks and Rose follows up with a shallow cut to her back. Shout of rage from Yang. Scattered by Punch.

Reforms behind Joan, Rose in place between her and shield. Twist and kick. She falls onto Rose’s blade neck first. Her Semblance was dropped after Ice dust disabled her to get out of Ice Dust trap. Aura breaks as she scatter and reforms with a thorn around her wrist shredding her flesh as Ruby pulls. More screams of Pain. Her smile is too much and her face hurts from the smile.

Yang throws a punch at Ruby’s face. She scatters around Yang reforming behind her once more, Yang twirls around fast expecting the reform and throws a second punch which scatter Ruby again and she reforms behind her sister lashing out with a Thorn before minor reforming in stance for an attack with Rose. Yang is sent flying back by the Force round she fires from Rose into her gut.

Blake attacks with a yowl of hate. Another Scatter as she backs off and returns to sniping from behind Yang’s position. Fire a Heavy metal round into Blakes leg. Aura shatters and blood spills from the bullet wound in her leg.

Yang explodes as Ruby scatters once more disappointed with her Sister’s team’s performance. She expected a challenge but instead she gets this disappointment. They must be at the bottom of their class if this is their performance. She’s going to give Yang something to remember this by.

Yang is yelling something but Ruby ignores her. She wants to make Yang hurt like she hurt her. To make her feel even some small portion of the hurt she feels every day.

She knows how to do this.

She reforms in her guard and punches her bitch face in with the original bits of Mercurial Thorn. The weapon was ingenious allowing the user to lock a bar back which would be thrown forward with the punch adding the velocity and mass of the weapon to any punch thrown. The biggest issue was the need for a recharge for the device to return to a ready position. With her Semblance she could reform to force it back into that position so she punched three times in rapid secession leaving Yang surprised as her Aura broke ending her semblance.

She was on her back babbling about something.

Ruby kicked her dumb bitch face in. Once, twice, three times.

Kicked her over and grabbed her Hair. The glorious mane she had always been so proud of. That she’d spend hours taking care of every night. Thorn clicked into a knife as she sliced through the mane dropping the hair in Yang’s face.

“I hope it hurts bitch.” She snarled in Yang’s ear before she walked off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mind me just writing more.


	3. Ruby goes to Beacon

Ruby was surprised that when she came back from blowing off steam after the frankly disappointing performance from her sister’s team that nobody was home. She half expected an angry dad yelling at her about her behavior or some shit but not even Team GLWB were in the house. Suited her just fine.

The next month of Summer break before Beacon started she rarely ever saw Team GLWB, they were avoiding her entirely which again suited her fine. It was far easier to avoid them herself when they were all actively avoiding her as well.

She trained mostly in alleviating the weakness of her Semblance. The burns from where the burn dust had passed right through her remains on her upper arm hidden by her jacket which was she was thankful to have found a weakness in how her semblance worked and worked it out.

While she scattered from kinetic force she remained entirely affected by thermal energy. She could be chilled or burned easily, far more easily than if she used her aura to form a shield but figuring out how to scatter on contact had required dropping her aura shield entirely. Scattering was a flat cost that was cheaper than taking a blow 99% of the time so it was an easy trade off, now she had to consider that aspect of a possible attack and weight the risks.

Setting fires and trying to scatter near them proved just how vulnerable she really was to heat. She’d have to figure out a counter-measure and until then prioritize targets that used Burn or Freeze dust.

She spent most of time leading up to Beacon building up her resistance to fire which usually involved fire and pain. Aura healed any damage she might suffer and the pain was a nice way to relax she found.

So when the day came for her to head to Vale for Beacon initiation and she still hadn’t seen more than a minute of Team GLWB in the last month she was in a fantastic mood.

She spent the bullhead ride glaring at some of her peers from Signal, how any of them got accepted she didn’t know but according to Qrow initiation would weed out those with the skills but not the mentality or who’s skills in practical situations were lacking.

She fully expected all of them to flunk out. And good riddance Beacon didn’t need another Team GLWB; so far behind that an 18 year old, not even having begun her time at Beacon, had decimated their team.

Sometimes at night she remembered their screams of pain and the look on their faces as she broke them. Those thoughts always pleased her in a way that she was aware she might not have only a few years ago. Grimm never gave her such pleasure so it was a bit of a disappointment that it would likely be a while before she got another chance to enjoy herself that way. If it was anything like her nevermore kill the high would fade in time and she’d be left wanting.

She’d deal with that issue when it came though. For now she merely enjoyed finally being at Beacon by avoiding other people as much as possible. Just because she’d have to put up with 3 idiots on her team didn’t mean she wanted to deal with their bullshit.

* * *

Ash moved through the crowd like Ash on the wind. Her eyes were drawn to each prospective Hunter-in-Training as she analyzed their weapon, it’s basic construction and how best to neutralize them as a threat should she have the need to do so.

Her gun was concealed under her arm while her knife was at her hip. She didn’t have the money or desire for one of their fancy Meka-shifts. They lacked the durability of a more basic weapon. Her modified pistol and Knife had been her weapons of favor since she had joined the Rhiannon Tribe as a girl. They given an SDC slave a knife and gun and pointed her towards her tormentors and told her to earn her freedom. She’d been with them ever since.

Her weapons were still those same cast-offs. But she loved them. Refused to part with them when they had served her so faithfully over the years.

Behind the silk that covered the lower half of her face she smiled as her hand brushed over the hilt of her knife. She had been given a mission. Train as a Huntress, Kill the spawn of Branwen at this academy, return to the tribe and prove her worthiness to lead that against the Branwen bitch.

She was the blade of her Tribe, she would silence all personal feelings on her orders and execute them to the letter and intent of the order. Even if her stomach threatened to rebel at the orders she would remain loyal.

* * *

Emma directed her body through the crowd of boring grey people. None she had seen had that spark, that look that gave made her insides all wriggling begging to be spilled. She longed to take out her baby and drive it into her gut. Twist and slice until her entrails became her outtrails but she had promised that Hunter she would avoid getting her blood and guts on the floors of the school and she kept her promises.

She thought Hunters would be a more interesting bunch than this lot. Her body moved around and twisted and turned pulled around by her aura. More than a few people were watching her body now. The oddness of it’s movements drawing their attention. She gave a cursory glance at them to see if any were of interest to her before discarding them from her thoughts. She pulled her body through hallways around people before getting bored and taking it to her bed where she let it rest. She didn’t need rest but with nothing better to do she might as well.

Hopefully this initiation would be more interesting than she’d experienced so far. And perhaps she’d find some entirely new and fun way to die. That would be fun. Maybe it’d even break into the top 5. She wasn’t sure if it would beat that time she got burned at the stake. The looks on those villagers faces as she started laughing and thanking them for making her hurt so good.

* * *

Zoe skipped. After all the training and work she was finally here at Beacon. Her eyes went from person to person reading the text above their heads.

Names, skills and their intent towards her easily read like they were each a book. A few people’s skills made her gulp involuntarily fearful she might not be up to snuff. But judging by the average level she was slightly above average. ‘Yay for above Average!’

She did wonder who she’d be paired up with. Her semblance was telling her the pairing would be random. Which meant that no amount of reading her peers would give her insight. All Luck, too bad her luck was absolutely without a single doubt in her mind the worst thing on this Remnant. She could flip a coin 100 times declaring heads and all 100 flips would be tails.

Knowing her she’d get paired up with a bunch of grumpy pants. But even then with her Semblance maybe she could befriend them and make them not so grumpy. Her luck might be laughably terrible but she had learned long ago to make her own luck.

She smiled and skipped into the school tripping over a can of soda and falling face first into a Trash can. Wonderful start to the day. She could have fallen on something sharp afterall.

The following morning Zoe woke in the cot she’d been assigned. Went about her morning routine, first she slipped in the shower and hit her head on the bar, it was harder than the one at home. Then she ate a breakfast where she only choked twice; today was going to be a great day she could tell.  
The Headmaster’s speech was a thing Zoe barely paid attention to. She didn’t mean to ignore him but halfway through he started talking about how he had once killed a Geist with a Hotdog and she filtered him out(An exaggeration, the Hotdog was frozen and sharpened into a shiv). She saw more than half of the audience did the same aside from one girl named Ruby Rose who she read more easily than most.

> **Ruby Rose**
> 
> **Semblance: Rose Petal Rush - Ability to dissolve body into cloud of Rose Petals while creating a propelling force to move those petals in whatever direction she desires.**
> 
> **Threat: High**
> 
> **Is currently thinking about stabbing the Headmaster.**
> 
> **Hnsakhfsakl;jdafh;alsdajyjfgbhfdggsdgf**

She made a note to avoid her as much as possible which was a shame because appearance-wise she was unfairly attractive, it was just too bad she was the textbook definition of a grumpy pants.

They were first led out into the pre-dawn campus. The Sun wasn’t quite yet over the horizon and without needed to read the headmaster she wasn’t surprised when Headmaster Port led them to the edge of Deacon looking out over Vale. The sun rising from the east glanced off of glass in the city below as the city was filled with the light of another morning. Far off the natural walls of the city built into what historians believed was once either a meteor strike or the caldera of some ancient long dormant volcano helped defend the city.

“6.2 Million people, Human and Faunus, live within your sight this very moment. Should you succeed today you will embark on the Path of a Hunter your job will be to range far outside the cities of remnant to defend these people. As well as the 7.1 million in Mantle and Atlas, 4.8 in Vacuo and 6.8 in Mistral and the many millions more who live outside the walls of the Four Kingdoms.” He allowed a moment for everyone of the prospective Hunters to take in the sight as the sun continued it’s rise. Street light down below dimming as automatic sensors detected the light and turned them off to conserve energy.

Zoe took the opportunity to watch some of her peers and read them.

> **Ashley ‘Ash’ Rhiannon**
> 
> **Semblance: Ash Clone Replacement - Ability to teleport to area within sight leaving behind an autonomous clone capable of continued action for several seconds. Dissolves to Ash on impact or after 5 seconds.**
> 
> **Threat: High**
> 
> **Enjoy’s Udon and is currently thinking about getting a bowl of Udon after this.**
> 
> **Finds this delay annoying.**
> 
> **Hnsakhfsakl;jdafh;alsd**

That was impressive, usually she’d get more from a first look. She was also unfairly cute and bonus points since she wasn’t thinking about stabbing their Headmaster.

The next to draw her attention was yet another to give her garbled text.

> **Madi-Emily-son**
> 
> **Semblance: auhsnd;kujashbn Is a Corpse.asdasfasdadsfaasdfads Is not a Corpsezchahrhasdgafgafds Is the shiniest meat bicycle.adsaasudhajyklgbsflkjaghsdkjauyguyfgalusdkjhgajkygdywada**
> 
> **Threat: High**

And that one was complete nonsense. First of all the name was split into two distinct handwriting styles. One lacking in any character(The outer edges of ‘Madison’) while the other was jagged and misshapen. Handwriting seemed to be some indication of character she had found though she rarely based any conclusions on the handwriting of her semblance’s info-dumps. And second of all What even WAS a Meat Bicycle? She really hoped it wasn’t her semblance name as that would probably be quite the gruesome sight. And why were all the girls in her class unfairly hot?!

Garbled Information wasn’t unheard of from her Semblance though rare. Usually it indicated something hidden. That the person was projecting a persona to the outside world that was untrue to themselves or when there was core parts of their personality that were hidden from themselves. Other times someone’s semblance could more directly interfere with her Information gathering. The trouble was knowing which was which. The girl with two names was mostly garble so probably something to do with her semblance while the others were less and more likely due to persona.

Most of the others were easily read but her mind kept going back to those three. Curiosity killed the cat indeed. Her ears twitched and she wanted to go curl up in the sun and relax while she thought about what she’d learned.

Unfortunately instead at some point in her thoughts the Headmaster had directed them away towards initiation and she had followed without much thought and she tripped on an uneven stone drawing the attention of her entire class.

“Hey, isn’t that the same girl who jumped in the trash can yesterday?”

“Maybe she saw a Laser pointer.” Another voice taunted followed by a laugh that was shared with the others.

Then a bunch of Rose Petals materialized in front of her as Ruby Rose was kneeling down towards her.

“Need help?”

“Uhhhh” her brain stopped working.

“Getting up. You kinda tripped over yourself there.”

“Just my luck.”

“Ooo, do you have a Luck-based Semblance. My uncle has one. He hates it.”

“No, just cosmically unlucky.” She decided to reach out and take Ruby’s hand who managed to make getting her up look easy.

**Works out a lot. Is strong enough to pick you up without much effort.**

Damn semblance giving her information that she really didn’t need to know.

“Well okay then.” She took a moment before more quietly speaking. “If you need help with them just ask okay. Always happy to help someone in need.”

**Partly wants to help. Partly wants to punch someone’s face in and have what she considers to be a valid excuse to hurt someone. Enjoys inflicting pain on others. Is a Sadist.**

And now she was reminded that this was the girl who wanted to stab the Headmaster for boring her.

Maybe she should drop out and try again next year?


	4. Delay: Duration Unknown. Details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr: There's gonna be a delay while we figure out our writing process again. Details below.

So this is not the update I wanted to make but at this point we just can't continue writing as we were. The reason? We have OSDD-1a, for those less aware of what this means it makes us a Plural/system or the more common term MPD(Multiple Personality Disorder). We don't really like the term MPD simply due to the connotation it has with media portraying those of us who are plural as being dangerous and shit but it's also the best way to get people to understand some aspects of the situation.

So from this point forward any author comments will be tagged with which alter (the term for independent personalities) is speaking.

B: Hey, I'm Blake. I'm the host(The one in control of the body more than any other) and the closest thing to an 'original' Ys that exists. I'm the one most interested in continuing to write and the one who's calling this break to figure things out between us all. I use She and They pronouns.

X: I'm Alyx and I'm still very new to the system having just woke up yesterday. Any/all pronouns are good for me.

N: Nyx. They/she

Z: I'm Zoe. She/her. I would stay and talk but kinda not that interested in all this.

B: We also have another but they won't be joining us right now. In addition we might still have others forming; Alters which might further affect things. So I'll talk about some of our insights into how our system works that I'm willing to share so that those reading this can know why we need to take some time to figure things out again.

B: Basically I am not the same Ys that wrote everything. Because before we/I accepted our plurality we were sorta mashed together. Parts that didn't fit being held together by force and the power of denial. Having accepted our nature the parts of ourselves that we drew on for various parts of our writing are now separate with wills of their own. Effectively if we are to write again we'll need to act as co-authors sharing the same body and that means that instead of being one will writing this we not only have to figure ourselves out (again we thought we were done with gender stuff and the return of it all is annoying to us all) but how we can work together to write and settle on stories we're interested in telling together.

B: As a 1a system our alters tend to be a variant on the base Ys template as we call it. My girlfriend who I live with says that she can tell the difference between us while seeing the parts that showed when we were mashed together. We also get along very well because we had over a year to tackle the possibility of being a system. As such even as the host who is the one who largely interacts with the outside world I still consider myself no more important than the others. Even the title of host is one I take as a more descriptive term than proscriptive(Basically I accept the title of Host because I am the default fronter for our system. I don't consider that title to allow me greater power within our system)

B: But I'm guessing I'm getting a bit distracted from my original post. Basically I want to continue writing. Nyx and Alyx are interested in helping and Zoe might if we want to write something that interests her. Our last Alter would only participate in certain content that the rest of us are not terribly interested in writing so she's unlikely to ever make an appearance here.

B: I'll be moderating comments for my stuff because I'm half-expecting some hateful comments from this.

B: I rarely make fic recommendations but [**"The Many Faces of Har--er, Adira Potter"** by Fayanora](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4394258/chapters/9976385) It's Harry Potter which I feel a bit iffy recommending given that JK is a shitty person who coded a lot of right-wing shit into her books however this has a ton of great stuff as I remember so I'll leave it here for those who maybe are interested in it to check out. I can't thanks the authors of this enough for giving us our first positive depiction of plurality and priming us to be ready for this. If it weren't for this fic we might be in a way worse situation.

B: Hope we can return to some sort of update schedule once we figure stuff out. <3


End file.
